“I suddenly realised I was in California. Warm, balmy air – air you can kiss – and palms.”
I thought about these words Jack Kerouac wrote in 1951 as I turned off the state’s famous Highway 1 and followed the road around, the gleaming Pacific Ocean in sight. Everything around me was tinted pastel pink in the early evening light. A liquor store’s neon flickered, sun-faded motel signs promised vacancies, a couple walking arm-in-arm crossed the wide street framed by the rolling Irish Hills. If the perfect sleepy beach town still exists in California, I wondered if I’d found it.
“The secret is out and there’s a bit of gentrification, but it’s still the same as it’s been for 30-odd years,” said Ryan Fortini, born and raised in the area and owner of the boutique Pacific Motel, my base for two nights.
Sunrise view towards Morro Rock from Cayucos
(Ellie Seymour)
I was in Cayucos, a hidden surf town in San Luis Obispo County on California’s crowd-free central coast – or SLO-CAL as it’s known. Exactly halfway between San Francisco and LA, this peaceful paradise is home to world-class surf, glorious wine country, seal colonies, Michelin-starred restaurants, the kitschiest hotel in the world, and even an opulent castle.
Despite SLO-CAL’s charms, it’s a region most road-tripping visitors along the Pacific Coast Highway merely pass through on their way to bigger-ticket coastal hotspots like Big Sur. But when they do discover it, they soon realise it’s a destination worthy of a holiday in its own right and vow to return.
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The next morning, from the terrace of my new favourite café, Hidden Kitchen, I watched people clearing the butter-soft sand of driftwood after a storm. And then I met my Cayucos Cowboy: a big blue corn waffle topped with eggs, smoky black beans, green salsa, avocado, and cilantro (that’s coriander to us across the pond). It was California on a plate; the perfect post-surf breakfast, too, according to my husband Dan, who’d caught a few waves that morning and was ravenous.
With two days to play with, we spent the first exploring north of Cayucos, starting at Harmony, population 18. Founded in 1869 as the home of the Harmony Valley Creamery Association, today it’s a quaint day-out destination where you’ll find the Harmony Valley Creamery Scoop Truck, Harmony Glass…
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